Medical Device Early Stage Design Consulting

The discovery phase in medical device development

Begin your medical device development with discovery to uncover opportunities, identify user needs and set the right direction for success.

Applying a collaborative approach, we can help you chart a path forward. Perhaps you want to explore possibilities to enhance the user experience through innovative solutions. Perhaps you need a defined strategy to guide project prioritization or align business stakeholders to a common vision. Perhaps you want to survey the market landscape for the next big trends or determine where you can create a new trend. In all cases, understanding the opportunity space — including unmet user needs, underserved markets or emerging trends — will be key to your success.

Person putting a sticky note on a glass wall during a collaboration session.

We recommend that you diligently study the area of interest before you start to create, and we can serve a crucial role as your partner in this phase. Specifically, we can provide the right cross-functional team from our large pool of researchers, designers, human factors specialists, engineers and regulatory experts to clarify the following:

Outstanding user needs and unfulfilled desires
Development opportunities and value propositions
Competitive landscape and analysis
Trend reports

Exploration of early solutions, including ideation and evaluation
Use-related risk potential
Regulatory pathways and strategy

Our comprehensive discovery process

Research user impacts, conduct collaborative design sessions, evaluate concepts, refine ideas and align with stakeholders for successful development.

Explore

Research and analyze impacts to the user experience, including safety, scope, feasibility and unresolved user needs.

Diverge

Lead collaborative design sessions to explore the “design space” and, ultimately, produce a wide range of practical to blue-sky concepts.

Evaluate

Present concepts, such as sketches or prototypes, to prospective users and stakeholders to collect impressions and recommendations.

Converge

Select and refine the most promising concept(s) as a starting point for focused product development or broader product strategy.

Confirm

Conduct a cross-functional review of concepts with key stakeholders to confirm feasibility and gain alignment on selected directions.

This review might determine the need for further research or development to inform decision-making, noting that a design iteration is not a negative outcome but an opportunity to drive excellence.

Diverse applications of our discovery activities

Our discovery activities span various applications, from patient monitoring systems to infant nebulizers, providing tailored support for unique challenges.

Group of colleagues collaborating in front of a bulletin board

Spending days observing the use of telemetry technology on a medical/surgical unit in a hospital to help determine the safest course of future patient monitoring system development efforts.

Working with parents of infants to determine the desirable characteristics of an infant-sized nebulizer.

Conducting observations and interviews of EMTs and paramedics to determine the desirable features of a patient monitor/defibrillator.

Conducting observations and interviews of clinicians and patients in dialysis clinics to help shape a vision for home dialysis solutions.

Examining treatment rooms within several endoscopy units and interviewing physicians, nurses and anesthesiologists to determine challenges within and opportunities to improve specific treatments, with a focus on key features of a new piece of capital ablation equipment.